There are many mail providers over the web but I would state the features of 5 highly popular or useful mail providers. (It’s totally my views, so it may differ person to person).
Gmail, Yahoo, rediff, mail.com, in.com ,lycos, facebook.com, gmx.com, hotmail, aol, gawab, mail.ru, 126.com are a few to include in that list.
1. Gmail
I have already explained why I like Gmail most. There is not much to write here again about this lovely mail provider. You can read our previous post based on Gmail.
In short let me tell you that
· it’s easy to operate
· it’s really very fast
· 7 Gb+ space
· Can login to multiple account at one time
· Access a lot of services just by having one mail id. Like blogspot, analytics, webmaster, adsense, google+
· Audio and video chat with soothing enhancements
· Easy to access through mobile devices too
2. Yahoo
After Gmail, I can say Yahoo mail is ubiquitous over the web, mobile devices, iPad etc with unlimited storage facility, chatting etc.
· It has almost unlimited storage capacity
· Attachment limit is 25 MB
· Keyboard shortcuts are there and are having similar to desktop like interface too
· No labeled message as far as I have experienced
· No IMAP access to its mail, so no support for desktop email programs
· Yahoo! Mail offers free email accounts with yahoo.com, ymail.com and rocketmail.com domains.
· It can be found in mobile devices too!
3. Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail is again a free email service with unlimited storage and can be considered the most secured mail provider over the internet.
· Easy to use
· Very simple layout as compared to Gmail
· Maximum file size allowed is only 10MB
· It doesn’t offer IMAP Access
· You can set hotmail to accept mail from the people who are in your address book.
· Live messenger is very famous. So nothing more to discuss about it.
· A vacation auto-responder answers emails in your absence (Almost all mail providers have this feature)
4. GMX
· It’s a reliable email service filtered well of worms, viruses etc and provides unlimited online storage.
· It offers a rich web interface which may make you to feel better and more interactive.
· POP and IMAP access are allowed in GMX
· No chat and no support for handheld devices
· 50 MB attached file size limit
5. Mail.com
It’s good for forwarding mail with various domain names and attachment limit for any file is 50 MB. But it lacks security features and trust of other webmail services.
· You can choose your mail id from 200 listed domain names. ex: sanjeev@writeme.com or jassi@techie.com (sounds interesting )
· It offers a calendar and notepad too but can’t beat Gmail’s features.
· 50 MB file attachment size limit.
· Spam and virus protection is little weak (which may be of major concern while choosing this mail provider)
· It’s online calendar, solid address book feature may attract intern users
There are other major mail providers also but I think these are at the top with respect to storage, popularity, user friendly aspects.
Rediff has changed its look, now it’s easy to navigate date wise, easy to delete, easy to attach file etc but still I am not sure if it has attracted as many users as those 5 mail providers have.
Here is the comparison of list of web mail providers: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers
